Evening Joe

Joe Scarborough Has a Little Secret . . .

The renowned television host, and former congressman, is embracing his deep yearning—to be a late-in-life rock star. “I turned 50 and I said, I’m going to die and my kids are never going to see this side of me.”

It was just past eight P.M. on the corner of 84th and Columbus, and the temperature lingered haplessly in the 90s. Inside Prohibition, a dive bar self-consciously dressed up in 20s-themed kitsch, the condensation was dripping from wine glasses; the smell of beer mixed with nervous energy amid a din of high-pitched chatter. A hundred or so people crowded around a stage in the middle of the bar. Many of them cornered the over-50 demo, with distinct sartorial ticks germane to the Upper West Side: most women wore dangly earrings and flowy blouses that clung to their skin, and the men were mostly gray or graying, bald or balding, in square-rimmed glasses. They were all jockeying for a prime view of the stage.

The band began playing at 8:30 sharp—the exact call time for the evening’s gig—a punctiliousness perhaps less rock ’n’ roll cool than cable-news precise. Its front man, after all, was Joe Scarborough, the 53-year-old host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and the band, naturally, goes by the name Morning Joe Music. The players—a group of talented, scruffy-looking guys in jeans—formed a constellation around Scarborough not unlike Willie Geist, Mike Barnicle, and Donny Deutsch do on-air every morning. They all had something to add, but mostly, they existed to orbit Scarborough, who has arguably become the most influential Republican in America during this election season. Scarborough, who has known Donald Trump for years, was among the first in the media to presage his mind-boggling rise—and one of the most consequential conservatives to rebuke him. But this evening was not intended as political theater. A few minutes after 8:30, a wall of sound filled the room: two backup singers ooh-ing and ahh-ing, two horn players blaring high notes in harmony, and a keyboardist who sounded faintly like Rufus Wainwright all backed up Scarborough on the vocals of a song he had written himself.

Mika Brzezinski, Scarborough’s morning show co-host, was perched on the edge of her seat in a booth just offstage, toggling an iPhone, a Chanel shopper, and a drinks menu as she sang along to every word of the song and waved her fists to the beat. She ordered a bottle of wine for the table and texted friends in order to get them to stop by. She was, all at once, an inspiring combination of groupie, hostess, and dutiful colleague. And maybe a little rock star, too, in jeans and black sunglasses resting atop her white-blonde hair.

Brzezinski, who is 49, was joined in the booth by her brother and sister-in-law and niece. The big, boisterous Morning Joe family often show up to Scarborough’s gigs, too, but it was deep summer and neither Geist nor Barnicle were there. The room was still star-studded. Deutsch made an appearance. André Leon Talley, the fashion eminence and Vogue contributing editor, sat beside Brzezinski in a burnt-orange custom Tom Ford caftan of sorts. The real show, however, was onstage. When the saxophonist broke into a solo, Scarborough got on bended knee, candy-red guitar resting on his khakis, and tipped his head in reverence, perhaps an allusion to Springsteen nodding at Big Man during the E Street Band’s glory days.

The song ended, and Scarborough once again grabbed the microphone. “Now this is a special night,” he told the audience. “The band, we’ve been together since, what? 1947?” The “aren’t we so old?” age joke played well with the crowd. Scarborough knows his demo. “But tonight’s our big break because we have a star here, and her name is Mika Brzezinski.”

At that point, Brzezinski rose from her perch and waved regally. “Mika! Mika!,” the crowd roared. “Mika!”

Brzezinski hopped onstage and absorbed some gentle ribbing from Scarborough, who teased her by asking if she was a Republican. (One of the shticks of Morning Joe, as everyone knows, is that Scarborough is a former Republican congressman from the Florida Panhandle; Brzezinski, on the other hand, is a liberal journalist whose father served as an adviser to Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter.) Brzezinski appeared prepared for the routine. “No,” she deadpanned, “and neither is Donald Trump.”

The Upper West Siders erupted. “Scarborough 2020!” one shouted. Brzezinski echoed the phrase. “I don’t like when he talks too much, but he sings great,” she said before reclaiming her seat in the booth. The band moved on to a cover of Prince’s “Kiss.”

Scarborough and Brzezinski’s relationship has become a topic of fascination among, largely, the concentric circles of people who appear on their show and those who write about them. In late June, Page Six reported that Brzezinski’s recent divorce might suggest that she and her co-host were going to reveal that they were a couple. More recently, Donald Trump tweeted that he would one day tell the story about “@JoeNBC and his very insecure long-time girlfriend, @morningmika. Two clowns!” He followed up by referring to Brzezinski as a “a neurotic and not very bright mess!”

Scarborough fired back with a tweet of his own. “Neurotic and not very bright? Look in the mirror.”

Trump’s tweets seemed ridiculous, even by Trumpian standards, and likely an obfuscation at a time when the candidate had again restructured his campaign and found himself woefully behind in numerous swing states. But that relationship, whatever it is, went undiscussed at Prohibition. (A spokesperson for MSNBC declined to talk about the pair’s relationship. Scarborough said his tweets speak for themselves.)

“We were in this room with the president, the vice president, the
secretary of state, the secretary of you name it. I sat there and
could not have cared less.”

The gig was the culmination of another long day for Scarborough. He had risen before dawn, filmed his show, and arrived at Prohibition a few hours later for rehearsal. Brzezinski, in running gear and her TV makeup from earlier that morning, had tagged along, dropping him off before she headed out for a run.

Scarborough talks music as easily as he does politics. But as he began to discuss his history in the field, it was obvious how much more of a music geek he is (one who was so freaked out when he met his idol, Paul McCartney, that he says he couldn’t think of a single thing to say when they came face-to-face backstage at his show). He began playing piano at age five, started writing songs a few years later, and still noodles around with the 10-or-so guitars he has scattered around his Upper West Side apartment. Decades of songwriting have yielded a collection of about 400 songs, most of which no one has ever heard, because he had been paralyzed by a fear of judgment from ever performing them. That fear, he said, endured until a few years ago. “I know this doesn’t sound very rock star,” he recalled, “but I turned 50 and I said, I’m going to die and my kids are never going to see this side of me.”

I asked him how someone who ran for office, who served in Congress, and who hosts a daily cable news show could possibly still claim to be scared of judgment. Without a beat, he responded that music is the only thing he has ever really cared about professionally. “When I was in Congress, there were about 10 or 11 of us who were holdouts, who didn’t want to send troops to Bosnia. We were in this room with the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of you name it. I sat there and could not have cared less. It just wasn’t what I valued,” he said, evincing a dry humor that seemed designed to amplify his inner musician. “But music, music is so important to me and my songs are so important to me. If somebody says, ‘Hey, Pete Townshend or Elvis Costello is going to be there,’ at that point I sort of dissolve.”

Some of the self-consciousness came through as he rehearsed with the band. Scarborough tapped his Stan Smith sneaker to keep time, like a kid taking music lessons would, and he mostly kept his gaze fixed on his guitar. But he loosened up a few songs in. “Hey, Emily!” he shouted to me from the stage. “Remember when I told you I didn’t write love songs?” He was referring to a point in our conversation, maybe a half hour earlier, when I asked if he had written any such ballads lately. “I’ve written one in the last 40 years and we’re about to play it,” he shouted again.

I asked whom it was about. Scarborough said he couldn’t remember, but said he wrote it about a year ago. At that point Morning Joe Music began rehearsing “Let’s Fall in Love,” a crooning waltz about a man who is convincing a woman to do just that. Scarborough kept his eyes closed for most of the song, his voice approaching the sincerity of a pleading Springsteen serenade. As the horns and backup singer swelled to a crescendo, there was no suggestion of anxiety present on Scarborough’s countenance, no sense that later that night, 100 or so people would be judging him.

So far, Scarborough told me earlier, the reviews have been good, or at least far better than he expected. “They’ve kind of said what Tom Brokaw did when he first saw me [on television], when I was doing the slot before Imus,” he explained. “Brokaw sort of ambled into [MSNBC president] Phil Griffin’s office and looked up at the TV and I’m there talking and he said, ‘Scarborough, who knew?’”

Even if he can talk mellifluously about his music all afternoon, the conversation did veer toward the election. Two days earlier, Scarborough had caused a bit of a stir by writing a scathing rebuke of Trump in The Washington Post. The piece, headlined “The GOP Must Dump Trump,” seemed to represent both the host’s intensifying frustration with the candidate, and his own ultimatum for his own party.

Scarborough has been pounded for his relationship to Trump. The two have known each other cordially for years, and he often refers to the candidate on-air merely by his first name. Perhaps more accurate, however, is the fact that Scarborough sensed a legitimate opening within the Republican Party that Trump might exploit back when most within the G.O.P. were coronating Jeb Bush. “What we did more than anything is we predicted the hurricane was coming,” he told me. “We didn’t cause it. We knew Trump. We liked him personally because he was always nice, not just to us, but to other people.” He continued: “We knew him as this generous guy. He would come to your book party and hold up the book and say, ‘This is the greatest book that has ever been written. You know, I’ve read thousands and thousands of books and this is the most important step forward in publishing.’ That’s what he did for people, and it’s kind of surreal for all of us to watch now.”

The Washington Post piece was Scarborough repudiating that surreality. “When Trump came out with the Muslim ban,” Scarborough said, “it was pretty obvious I needed to go on the show that morning and say, ‘I can’t vote for somebody who says they are going to ban a billion people just based on religion.’ It was just as clear when I saw him say there might be a Second Amendment solution to Hillary Clinton nominating judges.”

I asked him why he didn’t respond so forcefully earlier in the campaign, amid Trump’s other bizarre comments. Scarborough responded by noting that he had candidly told the candidate to apologize after his insensitive remarks about John McCain (Trump half-heartedly referred to the senator as a war hero in a subsequent speech), and after three or four other uncouth Trump remarks. But he generally felt that the media was overreacting to Trump’s antics. The candidate’s reiteration of a Muslim ban and his David Dukeamnesia, however, were “disqualifying” in his opinion.

I pointed out that Scarborough had called on Paul Ryan and others to revoke their endorsements of the candidate. Realistically, what do they do?, I asked him.

“Spend all of their time electing a Republican House and a Republican Senate,” Scarborough said. “If we pretend that this does not exist in our midst, and that somehow what Donald Trump says represents us as the Republican Party, then Kelly Ayotte is going to lose in New Hampshire, Ron Johnson is going to lose in Wisconsin. Republicans are going to lose in the Senate and Republicans are going to lose the House. And they’re going to lose a lot of college-educated Republicans who have voted Republican every four years and who are starting to say, this isn’t my party anymore.”

Midway through their set, Scarborough seemed unburdened by the misgivings of his party, its candidate, and any lingering shyness of his own. His boss, Phil Griffin, walked into Prohibition just as the crowd lost its collective mind over the band’s cover of Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music.” The wine glasses were waving in the air. The gray hair was tossing around. It was Thursday night at 9:15 on 84th Street and baby-boomers were having the time of their lives. “He is so talented. He’s so creative it’s almost disgusting,” Griffin told me after he sat down next to Brzezinski. “It’s why he makes such good TV. He understands words, how to craft things. His mind just works in a creative way. It’s really incredible.”

At the very least, it is smart marketing. At a moment when Griffin and Scarborough and Brzezinski face more competition for fewer eyeballs, particularly with post-election ratings looming, he is actively cultivating a fan base—a group of devout followers to the cult of Joe and Mika—regardless of how much they care about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

He won over at least one new fan in André Leon Talley, who e-mailed me after the gig to share how impressed and, frankly, shocked he was. “I expected to see a reptilian gila monster belting out some Country and Western, or folksy tunes, from down home, Southern anxiety. Yet I walked into Prohibition in my new Tom Ford, which was soaked in sweat by the way, to find Joe and his professional band. It was a solid performance,” he wrote. It reminded him of moving to New York in 1974, when Andy Warhol was the sun around which a certain subset of the city’s social scene orbited. “Andy would have loved the way Joe moves easily from politics, to beautiful word crafting in his opinion, to creating music.”